Reynard the Fox

thumb|An illumination from a late 13th century [[manuscript of the Roman de Renart]]

Reynard the Fox is a literary cycle of medieval allegorical Dutch, English, French and German fables. The first extant versions of the cycle date from the second half of the 12th century. The genre was popular throughout the Late Middle Ages, as well as in chapbook form throughout the Early Modern period.

The stories are largely concerned with the main character Reynard, an anthropomorphic red fox and trickster figure. His adventures usually involve his deceiving other anthropomorphic animals for his own advantage, or trying to avoid their retaliatory efforts. His main enemy and victim across the cycle is his uncle, the wolf, Isengrim (or Ysengrim).

While the character of Reynard appears in later works, the core stories were written during the Middle Ages by multiple authors and are often seen as parodies of medieval literature, such as courtly love stories and chansons de geste, as well as a satire of political and religious institutions. The trickster fox, Reynard, lives in a society of other talking animals (lion, bear, wolf, donkey, etc.), making the stories a beast epic.

The original copies were written in Old French, and have since been translated into many different languages. However, the tales of Reynard come from all across Europe and each retelling has details that are specific to its area. The tales, no matter where they take place, are designed to represent the society around them and include the structures of society around them, such as a noble court. While the authors take many liberties with the story telling, not all of the satire is meant to be rude or malicious in intent.

The characters who switch between human and animal form are often those of elite status, while the characters who don't change tend to be peasants. Often, the readers will find themselves able to empathize with Reynard. They find that the situations he is in are not often that different from their own lives, and this carries across the decades. The common usage of animals as characters in tales has made it so the stories that touch on morally gray areas are easier to understand and accept.

Reynard the Fox. The given name Reynard is from Reginhard, Raginohardus "strong in counsel". Because of the popularity of the Reynard stories, renard became the standard French word for "fox", replacing the old French word for "fox", which was goupil from Latin vulpēcula. Since Reynard has been written about in many different times and places across the world, it is not uncommon to see changes in his appearance to fit the natural surroundings of his story. His fur is often used as a camouflage, meaning if the story was written in a snowy landscape he will have white fur, or yellow fur for desert areas, and in the wooded areas of a forest, he is depicted in red fur.
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In medieval European folklore and literature

thumb|180px|A studious fox in a monk's [[cowl, in the margins of a book of hours, Utrecht, 1460]]

Foxes in general have the reputation of tricksters in traditional European folklore. The specific character of Reynard is thought to have originated in Lorraine folklore, from where it spread to France, Germany, and the Low Countries. Alternatively, a 19th-century edition of a retelling of the Reynard fable states definitively with "no doubt whatever that it is of German origin" and relates a conjecture associating the central character with "a certain Reinard of Lorraine, famous for his vulpine qualities in the ninth century".

Joseph Jacobs, while seeing an origin in Lorraine, traces classical, German, and "ancient northern folk-lore" elements within the Reynard stories. Jacob Grimm in his Reinhart Fuchs (Berlin, 1834) provided evidence for the supposition on etymological grounds that "stories of the Fox and Wolf were known to the Franks as early as the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries".

From the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there are around twenty-six different tales of Reynard the Fox that survive today. These were written by multiple authors, some of whom are anonymous.

Reynard's principal castle, Maupertuis, is available to him whenever he needs to hide away from his enemies. Some of the tales feature Reynard's funeral, where his enemies gather to deliver maudlin elegies full of insincere piety, and which feature Reynard's posthumous revenge. Reynard's wife Hermeline appears in the stories, but plays little active role. In some versions she remarries when Reynard is thought dead, thereby becoming one of the people he plans revenge upon. Isengrim, alternate French spelling: Ysengrin, is Reynard's most frequent antagonist and foil.

Ysengrimus

Reynard appears first in the medieval Latin poem Ysengrimus, a long Latin mock-epic written c. 1148–53 by the medieval poet Nivardus, that collects a great store of Reynard's adventures. He also appears in a number of Latin sequences by the early-13th-century preacher Odo of Cheriton. Both of these early sources seem to draw on a pre-existing store of popular culture featuring the character.

Roman de Renart

The first "branch" (or chapter) of the Roman de Renart appears in 1174, written by Pierre de St. Cloud, although in all French editions it is designated as "Branch II". The same author wrote a sequel in 1179—called "Branch I". From that date onwards, many other French authors composed their own adventures for Renart li goupil ("the fox"). There is also the Middle High German text Reinhard Fuchs by Heinrich der Glïchezäre, dated to 1180. Roman de Renart fits into the genre of romance. Roman de Renart gets its start using the history of fables that have been written since the time of Aesop. The protagonist of the romance genre often has an adventure or a call to action, almost always caused by an outside force. In the 13th century, French was a standard literary language, and many works during the Middle Ages were written in French, including Reynard the Fox. Many popular works from the Middle Ages fall into the romance genre.

With different writers comes different variations. This can best be seen with Reynard. While describing the same character the Reynard from R I has many different character traits of that in R II. Willem's work became one of the standard versions of the legend, and was the foundation for most later adaptations in Dutch, German, and English, including those of William Caxton, Goethe, and F. S. Ellis.

With the invention of the printing press, the tales of Reynard the fox became more popular and started to be translated and recreated in many different languages. The tales of Reynard don't follow the typical sense of reprinting, as there is no clear chronology to the stories. Many of the original pages to these stories have been lost, so it is difficult to tell what the exact literary changes are, of which there aren't many, with the exception of the typical changes that are seen from the early days of the printing press.thumb|The [[trickster figure Reynard the Fox as depicted in an 1869 children's book by Michel Rodange]]

Modern treatment

19th century

Reinecke Fuchs by Goethe is a poem in hexameters, in twelve parts, written 1793 and first published 1794.

Goethe adapted the Reynard material from the edition by Johann Christoph Gottsched (1752), based on the 1498 Reynke de vos.

In Friedrich Nietzsche's 1889 The Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche uses Reynard the Fox as an example of a dialectician.

German artist Johann Heinrich Ramberg made a series of thirty drawings, which he also etched and published in 1825.

Renert [full original title: Renert oder de Fuuß am Frack an a Ma'nsgrëßt], was published in 1872 by Michel Rodange, a Luxembourgish author. An epic satirical work—adapted from the 1858 Cotta Edition of Goethe's fox epic Reineke Fuchs to a setting in Luxembourg. It is known to be a satirical mirror image of Luxembourg's social sphere after the turmoils of the Luxembourg Crisis, whereby the author transposed his criticism and social scepticism to the animal society in which his fox 'Renert' lives.

21st century

In the SyFy fantasy television show The Magicians (which aired from December 2015 to April 2020) there is a Pagan trickster god played by Mackenzie Astin named Reynard the Fox. SyFy's The Magicians is an adaptation of Lev Grossman's urban fantasy series The Magicians, in which Reynard the Fox appears first as a folk tale and is later revealed to be a minor deity. Fitting within contemporary tropes of trickster gods, Reynard is a major driving force of the narrative in The Magician King, yet remains only referenced in passing for much of the story.

This version of Reynard has little to do with the character as traditionally depicted, his purpose is more in line with that of the gods in Greek literature, with his role being to punish mortals for their hubris. This deviation from the character's actual history is indirectly addressed in the story, in which Reynard himself fabricates light-hearted tales to trick people into underestimating the danger he represents.

Notes

Bibliography

Avery, Anne Louise, Reynard The Fox (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2020).
Bonafin, Massimo, Le malizie della volpe: Parola letteraria e motivi etnici nel Roman de Renart (Rome: Carocci editore, 2006) (Biblioteca Medievale Saggi). cf. here an abstract of this book & cf. here a review of this book unfortunately not yet translated in English.
Zebracki, Martin, Het grenzeloze land van Reynaerde [The boundless country of [the Fox] Reynaert]. Geografie 20 (2011: 2), pp. 30–33.
Johann Heinrich Ramberg (artist), Dietrich Wilhelm Soltau (author), Waltraud Maierhofer (editor): "Reineke Fuchs – Reynard the Fox. 31 Originalzeichnungen u. neu kolorierte Radierungen m. Auszügen aus d. deutschen Übersetzung des Epos im populären Stil v. Soltau | 31 original drawings and newly colored etchings with excerpts from the English translation of the burlesque poem by Soltau." VDG Weimar, Weimar 2016. .

External links

Le roman de Renart In French.
The History of Reynard The Fox by Henry Morley, 1889.
Full text of the Middle Dutch poem
Full text of the Middle Dutch poem with notes
Reinardus, the journal for the International Reynard Society.
Anne Lair, "The History of Reynard the Fox: How Medieval Literature Reflects Culture," in: Falling into Medievalism, ed. Anne Lair and Richard Utz. Special Issue of UNIversitas: The University of Northern Iowa Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity, 2.1 (2006).
Complete Bibliography on Reynard from the Archives de littérature du Moyen Age
Reynard The Fox in the Vondelpark 05 03 2010
Reynard the Fox Collection at Mitchell Library, Glasgow